BRUSSELS – British politician and former soldier Paddy Ashdown has agreed to become the United Nations’ envoy to Afghanistan, a source close to negotiations on the post said on Wednesday.

PARIS – Iraq lacks any true spirit of reconciliation despite parliament’s decision to let former members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party return to government jobs, the United Nations’ Baghdad envoy said on Wednesday.

IRAQ – Following are security developments in Iraq at 8:00 a.m. EST on Wednesday. * denotes new or updated item.

MOSCOW – Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will travel to Tbilisi for Mikhail Saakashvili’s inauguration as Georgian president, his press department said on Wednesday, despite tense relations between the two countries.

WANA, Pakistan – Hundreds of militants in northwest Pakistan attacked and captured a paramilitary fort early on Wednesday, and 40 militants and seven soldiers were killed and 20 soldiers missing, the military said.

RAMALLAH, West Bank – Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip observed a general strike on Wednesday, in a rare show of unity after Israel killed 18 people in fighting a day earlier.

JENIN, West Bank – Israeli troops shot dead a leader of the Islamic Jihad militant group in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, Palestinian hospital officials and witnesses said.

TEHRAN (FNA) Tehran said US President George Bush could be prosecuted for his belligerent and unreal statements against Iran, adding that the US president would be impeached for his irrational wording by his own party upon return to Washington from a tour of the Middle-East.

TEHRAN (FNA) The results of the visit to the region by US President George Bush manifested themselves in no time, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said during a phone conversation with a Hamas official in the wake of a massacre of Palestinians by the Israeli regime in Gaza.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Afghan government has banned “The Kite Runner” film from theaters and DVD shops, an official said Wednesday, though Afghan shop owners with stalls at U.S. military bases are still selling the movie there.